Peter Gabon's book, Measured Success: Innovation Management in Australia, was launched in July by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr and endorsed by the Chair of the Australian Government's National Innovation Review Panel, Dr Terry Cutler. Here, he shares some thoughts on governance in innovative companies. In our book, we studied eleven Australian high-technology ventures and projects in depth. Three cases came from the biomedical arena. Proteome Systems was a pioneering company in the field of proteomics; Kinacia was a start-up which was developing compounds to prevent thrombosis; the extended wear contact lens project was a collaborative venture between a group of Australian research institutes, Novartis, and Ciba-Vision to produce a contact lens that could be worn continuously for thirty days (marketed as Focus Night & Day). We selected ventures with the potential to dominate their markets globally, and all but one were still trading when we studied them - anywhere between eight and 30 years after founding. While the research design meant ten of the 11 were much more successful than the average Australian high-technology enterprise, only three or four of them were unambiguous successes.
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